Empowering People to Change the World

Destroying the Works of the Devil Part II

Steve Holt

© Steve Holt | TheRoad.org

War X: Destroying the Works of the Devil part 2

Antiphonal Reading: Romans 8:14-17

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War X: Destroying the Works of the Devil part 2

• Last week we looked at Romans 8:1-17 and my thesis was that

the only way, the most powerful way, the most consistent way
to break the power of the devil and demons over your life is to
build up the works of the Spirit in your heart!

• What destroys the works of the devil are the works of the Spirit!
 • The best defense is a strong offense. Take the offensive in
your life

• The best way to stop all the reaction to problems, sins, and bad
habits is to put be proactive in putting on Christ through the
power of the Holy Spirit

• Ex. AFA graduate has only just begun his career of learning to
be a pilot…the Christian life is continuous growth and training…

Romans 8:1 Breaking the power of Shame and Condemnation

I’m talking about being wholehearted!

This will take courage! You must cultivate courage in 3 ways:

1. Vs. 1 Walking in the Spirit—daily feeding on the Spirit—

wholeheart worshipper

2. Vs. 5 Living in the Spirit—setting your mind and heart on

kingdom things—wholeheart warrior

3. Vs. 14 Led by the Spirit

Romans 8:15-17

• Adopted into the family of a King, the King of kings—we have

been given an inheritance

• As we suffer with Christ, He is building a kingdom in us.

Suffering is one of God’s most unique tools for crafting, honing,
and molding us into our throne with Him

• The way of Jesus will involve suffering—the road less traveled

• There is a symbiotic relationship of suffering and glory. It’s

almost like suffering causes us to hope for glory in a deeper
way
Vs. 18

• Suffering causes us to be careful in putting our hope to closely

tied to being happy on this earth. There is a joy to come as we
are refined by Christ through suffering

• Someday all of our present suffering will result in experiences

the glory of God

Vs. 19-22

• There is this groaning going on. Elvis Presley said there is a

whole lot of shaking going on, but God says there’s this
groaning
o Vs 18 suffering
o Vs. 20 futility
o Vs. 21 bondage and corruption
o Vs. 22 like being in labor

• Labor is painful. All of creation is groaning

• Demons take advantage of this—they enter in and invite

themselves into our lives through the pain of our lives. They
then use our flesh, our desires to attach themselves and create
deep feelings of shame, condemnation, and futility

• Ex. Jadis, more known as the White Witch, in The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe, has frozen Narnia in a hundred years
of winter, captures this idea of the futility of creation under spell
of futility. She is served by wolves, black dwarves, Giants, and
wherwolves. Satan is served by demons who swarm the
earth…

• Here’s the gold nugget here: God is using the futility of

creation, the suffering of our lives, to “revealing (present tense)
of the sons of God”
 o God wants to use our present pain and suffering to
transform us, make us conquerors, make us warriors and
worshippers
Vs. 23

• We “have the first fruits of the Spirit” within us: love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness…”

• It’s the “already but not yet” of the kingdom. Complete but
incomplete as we labor

Vs. 24-25

• Ex. Like a mother in labor, we have this hope of something

beautiful being birthed from our pain and hardship

• Ex. So many of us have been through drug addiction, divorce,

firings from jobs, called losers, labeled by people in authority
over us, and yet God is using it for good. God is using it to give
you a WHOLEHEARTED LIFE

• God wants you wholehearted—he said, “Love Me with your

whole heart”

• Wholehearted living is about engaging your life from a place of

worthiness. Men and women you are worthy to be loved and
Christ loves you. Satan hates you.

• You must cultivate courage, compassion, and connection to

experience this life

Vs. 26

• A key part of being wholehearted is knowing that you are weak.

It is being vulnerable about your weaknesses.

• When we acknowledge and are honest about our weaknesses,

the Spirit can come and pray through us
 • Jesus wants to pray through you as you open up your spirit to
His Spirit: crying out “abba Father” (vs. 15)

Vs. 27-28

• When we are honest about our weaknesses, our shame, our

sense of condemnation and will take it to Jesus, pouring out our
heart to Him, crying out to our Father:

o He hears us
o He loves us
o He speaks to us
o He leads us
o And all these bad things can be turned to good

• Ex. You will go through times of deep grief and loneliness, and
you will have to take things to God. Choose Jesus…

• Our passage isn’t saying “all things are good” but “all things can
work together for good” Huge difference.

• Stay the course with courage! Courage comes from the root
word cour, which means heart. Stay the heart! Don’t quit.

• People who live wholehearted, don’t quit when hard things

happen. Wholehearted people face their shame and
condemnation and turn it into prayer

Vs. 29-30

• Jesus uses pain, bondages, futility, and corruption to empower

us to trust the Holy Spirit in a deeper way, deeper than we
thought possible

• Conformed to His image! Becoming as wholehearted as Jesus!

Vs. 31-39
 • We are becoming super conquerors through hardship, pain,
and difficulties

• How are we becoming wholehearted worshippers and warriors?

• Through love. Read vs. 37 again

• By cultivating love in our lives: for God, for others, and also for
ourselves

• Brene Brown writes, “We cultivate love when we allow our most
vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known,
and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from
that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection. Love is
not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture
and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two
people when it exists within each one of them—we can only
love others as much as we love ourselves.’

• She continues, “Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the

withholding of affection damage the roots from which love
grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are
acknowledged, healed, and rare.” (The Gifts of Imperfection, p.
26)

• All of us need to know that we belong, that we are loved, that

we have something to offer. It’s the purpose of Christ and the
Church

• This is The Road. We aren’t there yet, but we are growing and
cultivating this kind of love

• This is actually what Communion, the Lord’s Table, is about…

Prayer for the Wholehearted Warrior:

Lord, I want to thank you and praise you that you are a Warrior
Father who cares, loves, and fights for your children. I want to
thank you Lord that I am your beloved son/daughter. I worship
you and thank you that you are always for me, you constantly
love me, and you live within me. I praise you that nothing can
separate me from you. Thank you Lord that you gave your Son
Jesus on the cross in order to forgive me of all of my sins—past,
present, and future—and thus you will freely give me all things.
I thank you Lord that nothing, not my sin or anyone’s sin against
me, no famine, no hardship, no difficulties, and no demon can
separate me from your love.

Jesus, I want to praise you that you came to this earth to destroy
the works of the devil. I want to thank you that you have the
power to destroy the works of the devil and demons because
you died on the cross as a sinless perfect sacrifice for all the
sins of the world and then you rose again from the dead and
thus conquered all the power of the enemy. Thank you Lord
Jesus.

Lord, you have said that I am more than a conqueror because of

your love for me. As a conqueror and warrior, I put on the full
armor of God. I put on the helmet of salvation and ask you to
renew my mind with thoughts that are good, wholesome, pure,
right, and true thoughts. I take captive any bad malicious
thoughts that would rob me of joy. I say no to negative sinful
thoughts that would cause me to be hurtful of others. I say yes
to a mindset that is full of your love, abundance and mercy.

I put on the breastplate of righteousness and ask you Lord to

protect my heart: my motives, my integrity, and the intentions of
my heart. God use my heart to love you, to love myself, to love
others today.

By the blood of Jesus, I put on the belt of truth. Today, I will

believe truth, act on truth, and walk in truth. I will base my
choices on truth not the falsehoods and deceptive lies of the
enemy. Truth will guide me today.

In the name of Jesus, I take up the sword of the Spirit which is

the Word of God. Today, I commit to reading, praying over, and
meditating in God’s Word, the Bible. Speak to me Lord, minister
to my heart Lord, open up revelation and wisdom to me Jesus,
from your Word today.

Today, by the cross of calvary, through the blood of Jesus, I

hold high the shield of faith. Lord, you say that faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God, so I study, read, and
pray through your Word so that my faith will be strengthened.
Empower my faith Lord. Increase my faith Jesus.

By the blood and resurrection power of Jesus, I shod my feet

with the Gospel of peace. Lord, wherever I go, whomever I meet,
may I be a peacemaker. I reject the demonic tendencies of
comparison, jealous, envy, and lust, and I choose to bring
peace, love, and compassion into all my relationships.

Thank you Lord for being my Warrior Father, my Warrior King.

Thank you for strengthening my inner man, my heart. Jesus, I
dedicate my thoughts, my motives, and my relationships to you
today. Empower me and use me for your kingdom purpose
today.

Cover me and my family with the blood of Jesus. In the blood of

Jesus, in the name of Jesus I commit this day to you. Amen.